SPECIAL NOTICE
99 -- SEFSC PEM GCRF Puerto Rico Deepwater Reef Fish Survey
- Notice Date
- 8/8/2024 11:03:05 AM
- Notice Type
- Special Notice
- NAICS
- 541690
— Other Scientific and Technical Consulting Services
- Contracting Office
- DEPT OF COMMERCE NOAA KANSAS CITY MO 64106 USA
- ZIP Code
- 64106
- Solicitation Number
- FD-2024-375
- Response Due
- 8/23/2024 9:00:00 AM
- Archive Date
- 09/07/2024
- Point of Contact
- Shawana Randolph
- E-Mail Address
-
shawana.randolph@noaa.gov
(shawana.randolph@noaa.gov)
- Description
- SEFSC PEM GCRF Puerto Rico Deepwater Reef Fish Survey NOTICE OF INTENT TO NEGOTIATE A SINGLE-SOURCE CONTRACT Special Notice: FD-2024-375 NOAA/NMFS/SEFSC/PEM/GCRF In compliance with FAR Subpart 13 coupled with the provisions set forth by FAR Subpart 5.101(a)(1), this Notice is hereby published to inform of the following: The U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), Office of Management and Budget (OMB) intends to negotiate, on a sole source basis, under the authority of FAR 13.106-1(b)(1), with Hector Jose Ruiz Torrez, located in Hormigueros, PR Using the procedures of FAR Part 13 the requirement is to procure the following: This requirement is for: Services, non-personal, to provide all labor, equipment and materials (unless otherwise provided herein) necessary for the scientific and technical consulting contractor shall provide vessels, captains, and observers that meet the specifications outlined in the SOW. The vessels will be used in performing deployment and retrieval of hook and line fishing equipment at each grid, and acquiring biological samples and general fish information of targeted and incidental catch. The vessel(s) will be required to complete a total of no more than 250 grids, island wide, as determined by grid selection from 20 - 450 m depths. The work is to be conducted from 09/01/2024 - 12/31/2025.��The contract will take place at the scientific and technical consulting entities facility in Puerto Rico. The field work will take place aboard commercial fishing vessels island wide in Puerto Rico territorial and EEZ waters The applicable Size Standard is North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) Code 541690 with a Small business size standard of $19.0M.This Sole Source Determination is based on NOAAA's requirement that is the only Vendor that provides the required services:The Government believes that Hector Jose Ruiz Torres is the only source capable of providing the services required at the level of quality required because the entity was awarded the 3 contracts, one in 2018, 2019, and 2020 with the exercising of an option year to continue work through FY22. An almost identical project is currently awarded to Hector Jose Ruiz Torres to sample island-wide using commercial fishers, with this new project maintaining the same protocols, with the addition of one shallow-water depth bin (20-50 m). These contracts that have been completed by Hector Jose Ruiz Torres have provided the necessary building blocks for the current 2024-2025 proposed project. It is absolutely necessary for the contractor to have working relationships with the commercial fishing industry with insured fishers hired and trained on the protocols prior to it beginning, as well as the observer program in Puerto Rico, which Hector Jose Ruiz Torres unequivocally does. There are multiple justifications for a sole source award in this project. The strongest rationale is scientific quality. The ability to detect treatment effects relies on the ability to reduce extraneous variability; changing vendors midway through the project will unquestionably introduce bias and variance as different anglers will vary in their procedures, even if following the same set of instructions. Small changes in procedures can have profound impacts on outcomes. Based on the previously awarded contracts, the CV�s generated by the methods and procedures used by Ruiz Torres have reduced sampling efforts by 46% for queen snapper, and 36% for silk snapper when compared to a simple random survey design. By doing so, the data collected resulted in CVs of mean CPUE ranging from 13-15% for queen and silk snapper. These low CV�s are critically important to the success of the project and their use in Caribbean stock assessments. The second rationale is logistical cost. This work is conducted in Puerto Rico with remote oversight from Florida. Using the established vendor precludes the need for costly and timely travel restrictions. Additionally, it would cost significantly more to conduct completely new training which would require travel to the island in order to orient a new vendor on NOAA specific requirements, as well as insure the scientific integrity of the data collection. The attached Single Source includes additional determinations.The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) National Marine Fisheries lab in Panama City, FL was recently awarded funding for the project, �Deep-water Fishery Independent Survey of Reef Fishes in Puerto Rico� through the Cooperative Research Program to complete a year of research utilizing a working relationship with commercial fishermen to use low cost methods to gain information regarding the deep water habitats and the deep water snapper fishery in Puerto Rico. The Caribbean Fishery Management Council (CFMC) has ranked investigations into this fishery at the highest priority level for deep water research in their region (NOAA Deep-Sea Coral Research and Technology Program, Priority Scoping Workshop for the Southeast Region, 2016-2019). All data collected is used to provide guidance and management recommendations to the Puerto Rico Department of Natural and Environmental Resources (DNER) as well as the CFMC. This project is built upon the results and recommendations of three prior deep-water fishery-independent studies: (1) a deep-water fishery-independent hook and line survey developed in Puerto Rico during 2015-2018 by researchers from the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science (RSMAS) and the University of Puerto Rico (Ault et al., 2018a); (2) a fishery-independent multi-gear survey in the Hawaiian Islands conducted by commercial fishers and scientists from NOAA�s Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center and RSMAS (Richards et al. 2016; Ault et al. 2018b) and (3) a NOAA CRP project that is developing lighted stereo-video camera arrays to use in combination with hook and line fishing (2018-2021).TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS: The contractor shall conduct sampling by utilizing commercial fishing vessels island-wide around Puerto Rico. The vessel daily rate shall include services of captain and observer on board, gas for commercial vessel to complete the scientific work, transit to and from port, cost of bait for the scientific work for the hook and line fishing, the deep-drop fishing gear including line, hooks, reels, floats, or weights, and time required to extract any biological samples. The vessel daily rate should also include the delivery and collection of supplies and/or samples shipping to and from NOAA; and back and forth between contractor headquarters and the Puerto Rico DNER. Fishermen may need to mobilize from ports outside of their home port to target all fishing grids selected for sampling. Datasheets, fish biological and tissue sampling supplies, and stopwatches for timing deployments will be provided by NOAA fisheries. The contractor is responsible for providing an observer to conduct the required fieldwork. The Contractor provided observer will assist with field work. Data collection protocols, biological sample collection, photo uploading and datasheet uploading shall be conducted by the observer(s) in accordance with the NOAA protocols defined and provided for this project. The contractor will be responsible for distributing sample grid lists to the commercial fishing vessels and observers. No more than 300 sampling grids will be selected at random, island wide, stratified by depth (20 - 450 m) and rugosity scores as defined by the National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science (NCCOS) multibeam backscatter and bathymetry data. Grid name, corresponding coordinates, depth, and strata will be provided by NOAA Fisheries to the contractor, as well as alternative grids, and plotted maps of the grids. The contractor must utilize commercial fishermen operating their own vessels with a local fishery observer onboard in Puerto Rico to generate CPUE, length composition, diversity indices, and distribution information for both exploited and non-target species using standardized hook and line fishing methods around the island. Selected grids will utilize two bait types while fishing (squid and tuna). The allotted soak time for the fishing line will not exceed a total of 30 minutes (total bottom time) at each grid. The fishing equipment must be deployed in the corresponding grid provided on the datasheet. This field setup will remain standardized for the entirety of this proposed project. The exact latitude and longitude in decimal degrees will be recorded at the exact time the fishing line and S-BRUV undergo deployment and retrieval by the observer on board, as will depth. The sampling day will consist of an average of 5 successful hook and line drops, but may vary based on location of grids and weather. Fishermen are allowed to sell or keep the catch after necessary biological samples and lengths are taken from target species by the observer, within their legal fishing seasons. Fishermen are allowed to sell other species that are not species of interest for this project within the legal fishing seasons after length measurements and species ID is taken by the observer. **THIS NOTICE OF INTENT IS NOT A REQUEST FOR COMPETITIVE PROPOSALS AND NO SOLICITATION PACKAGE IS AVAILABLE. HOWEVER, FIRMS THAT BELIEVE THEY CAN FULLY MEET THE GOVERNMENT'S REQUIREMENTS MAY SUBMIT SUBSTANTIATING DOCUMENTATION IN WRITING TO THE IDENTIFIED POINT OF CONTACT WITHIN 15 DAYS AFTER PUBLICATION OF THIS SYNOPSIS. SUCH DOCUMENTATION WILL BE EVALUATED SOLELY FOR THE PURPOSE OF DETERMINING WHETHER OR NOT TO CONDUCT THIS PROCUREMENT ON A COMPETITIVE BASIS. A DETERMINATION BY THE GOVERNMENT NOT TO CONDUCT A COMPETITIVE PROCUREMENT, BASED UPON RESPONSES TO THIS NOTICE, IS SOLELY WITHIN THE DISCRETION OF THE GOVERNMENT. ORAL COMMUNICATIONS ARE NOT ACCEPTABLE IN RESPONSE TO THIS NOTICE. Attachments Single Source Determination �
- Web Link
-
SAM.gov Permalink
(https://sam.gov/opp/ad955a1446d54315b7cf129be3a05861/view)
- Record
- SN07161857-F 20240810/240808230115 (samdaily.us)
- Source
-
SAM.gov Link to This Notice
(may not be valid after Archive Date)
| FSG Index | This Issue's Index | Today's SAM Daily Index Page |